The pirate stared at us in amazement for fully a minute before he proceeded to inform us that there were no cabins for us and that we were to sleep on the deck. Upon our remonstrance that we had paid first-class fare and a request to pay us back the difference between that and the third-class that he was giving us, he reached for his ever-present stick of firewood, and, this once in his hands, took the trouble to explain to us that he was only taking us as a favour, that the few cabins were already occupied, and that if we did not like it we could get off his launch. So saying, he turned clumsily on his heel and strode off. Fortunately, when we had started for El Dorado, we had taken our hammocks along, so we proceeded to hang them up in out-of-the-way corners by the advice of one of the two officers. As the pirate-captain raised no objection to this, we climbed in them and were trying to forget our lost dinner, when the fiend came up again and told us that they were in an inconvenient place and must be shifted. This made me so angry--for I knew it was done only to henpeck us--that I absolutely refused to budge an inch, and when he threatened to call up some of his men, I was so wild that I told him that if he dared molest us again during the trip, I should beat his brains out with a club the instant we got off the launch at Iquitos. The pirate drew back, stared at me for fully a minute, and then slowly retired. I imagined that perhaps he would try some other game, but he was quite cured for all the rest of the trip, and did not molest us once. This affair settled, we had just got asleep, when suddenly we were awakened by a number of loud shouts, jeers, and laughs. Thinking that possibly it might be a midnight murder, or something of the sort, I rushed to the side of the launch and perceived that Martínez and his men were being escorted by a number of "missionaries" to the vessel. Descending to the lower deck, I saw them shut him and his seven men up in the same cage with Orjuela; here the wretches continued to insult and abuse their unfortunate victims for more than half an hour. I observed, before retiring to my hammock, that the cage was so small that there was scarcely room enough for the nine prisoners to sit down together, and dirty in the extreme. The next morning, the 17th, we left El Encanto at about five o'clock, and by seven we had entered the Putumayo, which was very wide and dotted with large, heavily wooded islands. Along the banks numerous sandy _playas_ appeared from time to time. It was like seeing an old friend again, and I commenced to think of the time we were shipwrecked and subsisted chiefly on turtle-eggs.